


i want those auroras and sad prose (be your expat art on the chateau)

by Yellow_Bird_On_Richland



Category: Community (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Dreamatorium, Episode: s06e01 Ladders, F/M, I'm F. Scott Fitzgerald trash sometimes ok, Tender is the Night AU, abedison
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-10
Updated: 2021-02-10
Packaged: 2021-03-16 04:55:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,662
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29326608
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Yellow_Bird_On_Richland/pseuds/Yellow_Bird_On_Richland
Summary: Annie shouldn’t be feeding into what amounts to a regression for both of them.She’s a few drinks past feigning concern about her potentially shitty decision-making, though.
Relationships: Annie Edison/Abed Nadir
Comments: 9
Kudos: 26





	i want those auroras and sad prose (be your expat art on the chateau)

**Author's Note:**

> I listened to “the lakes” like seven times today and read some Fitzgerald short stories and this happened.
> 
> Rewritten aftermath of the speakeasy scene in Ladders.

"Just...just go home, guys," Frankie sighs after her "fart from the butt of a lesser god" rant and her weird, half-tirade at Leonard both fall kinda flat. "Or somewhere else, whatever. Please, just no more school speakeasy."

As most of them carp, her voice regains a bit of its backbone. "I think asking for a dry campus for the rest of the night is pretty reasonable, all things considered."

Jeff and Britta debark for some bar, probably.

Abed glances at them as they ramble off together and frowns. "Are they…?"

Annie shrugs and wills herself to not lean into him; she's not that far past buzzed. "I don't think _they_ know what they're doing. Besides drinking." She laughs, the sound coming out sharper than the gin she hadn't bothered to cut earlier, as she realizes she's said it aloud. She's trying to be better about not being downright catty toward Jeff and Britta, but what with the most recent trainwreck of an "engagement…"

_"Don't kill your own buzz thinking about them, idiot_. _"_

She wants to indulge her stupidity, her ill-conceived rebellion, for once. She so rarely gets to play the troublemaker, the immature one, despite being the youngest group member by about three years, though she no longer _feels_ young at twenty-four. She's too world-weary for her own good, and Abed's always told her she could stand to relax a touch more than she usually does, so…

"Whaddaya say we blow this joint? Catch a flight somewhere?" she banters at him once they're back home.

She's not ready to relinquish her character, or someone adjacent to it. Not yet.

He squints at her. "What do you mean?"

Anxiety manhandles her, two hands firm on her waist, when she doesn't detect even a hint of an accent to his voice. "You—you know what I mean." She waits a beat. "Please."

She doesn't give him her doe eyes. She's not that naive anymore. But she'll feel pathetically childlike if she has to spell out her desire.

" _Why do you do this to yourself, moron? Why do you bother investing in people?"_ her cynic, her inner ex pharmaceutical rep, snark at her. _"Because when you want to be selfish, it always backfires. Because you're smarter than that. Because you should know better. Because—"_

Abed cuts off her inner beratement with a duff of an imaginary cap. "Where to, toots?"

Annie beams despite knowing she doesn't deserve Abed's gift of a reprieve. "I'm over this flapper scene. I want somewhere to relax."

"Wanna stick in, what, the Roaring Twenties?" he asks, turning analytical.

"Yes, please," she nods, before the warmth of the evening's booze nudges her further. "Y'know, Abed, I don't know if I tell you this enough, but the way you do this really is magic."

He shoots her his small, pleased smile. "Thank you, Annie. So…"

They've ended up in the old Dreamatorium room, their feet guided by a year of wearing a path there with Troy, and she thinks Abed spots bits and pieces of so many past adventures in the dust particles dancing through the air, in how the door still sticks a little despite all the WD-40 they've sprayed into its joints during their time in the apartment.

"Searching for relaxation in the twenties?" he asks her. "A fine, moneyed dame like you's bound to be headed to the French Riviera. A sunny place for sunny people. Shady ones, too, the French don't discriminate."

"Quite right, of course," she murmurs, shedding her old accent and voice like snakeskin and adopting the low, casual one of a woman—late twenties, maybe early thirties—with decades of old money lineage. With the kind of unquestioned self-assurance she'll never have the privilege to know.

"Five star hotels. Fine dining. Private beaches," Abed tells her, stepping closer to her, and he's shifting, too. No longer a member of the service industry, no, he's a variation on his Don Draper character. More refined, but with a hint of wildness to him.

"There's still awful parties and gin rickeys and late nights dancing in fountains to be had if you want them when we touch down in France, though, honey," he winks. "If you want to look for them together. We can always find trouble, you know that."

She's not surprised that they've somehow manifested themselves into two first-class seats of an airplane—turns out the mental memory for operating the world's best virtual reality simulator never really goes away.

But the fact that they're at least coupled up, if not outright _married_?

Yeah, it takes her a sec to adjust to that, but she manages. Even if she has to retrieve another actual drink to do it.

"I'm rather done with those noisy rackets, dear," she answers after sipping on a gin and...well, gin, since they're out of mixers despite having an honest-to-God bartender for a roommate.

"For now, at least," Annie adds—after all, what husband in the twenties wants a fuckin' _wallflower?_

" _No, that just wouldn't do,"_ Annie tells herself as they go through the hassle of changing currencies, swapping dollar bills for _francs_ , since Abed's nothing if not thorough. The voice in her head's still a bit more June Cleaver-ish than she'd like (and about thirty years off), but between the pleasant sting of gin on her tongue, the sun on her face, the slightly salty ocean breeze catching her hair, and Abed's right hand in her left, she can't really complain.

**

For a woman who's had plenty of bad ideas (buying Adderall via Riverside's black—okay, white—market, tying her intrinsic worth to her academics, pursuing a few too many older men, et cetera), this one might count as Annie's best. Or worst. She's not sure yet.

She and Abed are perpetually decked out in decadence. She's never run less in the Dreamatorium, and everything on the Riviera faintly shimmers with a gold hue, making her feel like they've brought the shining sand of the beach and the ocean waves to all the restaurants and bars they frequent. The only shame of the Dreamatorium is that it doesn't do food, but they actually have crackers, a block of sharp cheddar, some grapes, and strawberries. A charcuterie board may not be the most elegant appetizer in the world, but it beats pizza rolls and buttered noodles.

And through it all, through the swimming, lounging, drinking, and sight-seeing, is Abed.

She should be freaking out—and, were this a couple of years ago, _would_ be freaking out—at just how easily they've acquiesced to their roles as a couple. She hasn't asked if they're legally together, and he hasn't volunteered that information. There's no need. Not when they so obviously belong to each other, presenting all the hallmarks of learned, casual, unobtrusive possessiveness—fingers linked here, favorite drinks remembered there, bookmarks kindly left in their proper place in the pages of shared books.

It's almost natural, really. Carryover of the reality that they've crafted a home together over the course of three plus years, that their friendship spans almost double that time. And compared to some of the other shenanigans they and their friends have carried out during their collective time at Greendale, pretending to be a couple straight out of a Fitzgerald novel to elude reality for a few hours, at most, hardly seems too strange.

It helps, of course, that they know to tread carefully. To avoid overloading the Dreamatorium with so much emotion that the facade, the simulation, develops spiderweb cracks and eventually crashes to the floor.

It _doesn't_ help that they're exchanging looks that only count as "friendly" under Jeff and Britta's ever-expanding definition of the word. That Abed gently presses an ice cube to the bare skin on her lower back for a second after she accidentally catches it with the zipper of a dress. That she's finding excuses to let their fingers linger when they pass each other drinks. Or to muss his hair and say she just wants to rake the sea-salt out of it with her nails.

She knows it's late, and they should shut it down soon. Get to bed.

But…

"One more dance, darling?" she offers.

"Course, doll."

It's easy—too easy—for them to mold their bodies together, his hands on her waist, hers looped 'round his neck, and she's realizing it's probably a good thing they've never actually done this at a Greendale dance before, because she doesn't want to go anywhere.

"Thanks for this," Annie whispers, willing her courage not to crumble. "I know I kinda made you do it."

"You didn't. I wanted to."

She's glad so many people (stupidly) find Abed's intense eye contact unnerving. She appreciates knowing she's not being lied to. Knowing that she can _see_ the truth to what he's telling her.

"Why?"

He manages a smirk, and if she swoons, it's fine, she's in her boyfriend's—or fiancée's, or husband's—arms. "Why wouldn't I wanna get away to the Riviera with my gorgeous girl?"

"Touche." She dares to shuffle closer to him. "We'll always have France, won't we?"

"Yes," he murmurs. "We'll always have France."

She bites her lip for half a second and his eyes flash dark and that's all the opening she needs.

She stands up as tall as she can to return his eye contact. Layers her voice with the rich sensuality she thinks he wants. Thinks he deserves. Thinks he could maybe learn to need, from her. "We'll always have this."

Unlike in paintball, she kisses him first, and with each second, she feels the game slipping away, out of focus; she can sense it fracturing even with her eyes closed and her mouth open and that's _definitely_ Abed's hand at the back of her neck. Definitely his trembling breath mingling with hers, just past her lips.

The Riviera finally washes away.

"Yes," he answers, with a quiet certainty that grounds her in reality. "We'll always have this."


End file.
